School´s OUT! Yes, that´s right--yesterday was the last day of the Academic Seminar portion of my semester here in Ecuador. It was just like any other day, but I somehow felt like I should pay more attention to everything since this was in fact not like any other day in that it was the last time I would have to wake up at 7:00 and make my way through the crowded city streets to the Experiment in International Living office where our classes were held. Yet, as I found myself once again squeezed between mounds of people on the Monserrat bus, shoved and jostled the whole ride and dying of heat between all these people, some of whom obviously did not believe in deodorant, I was not so sad it was the last day of this nor too concerned about paying attention to it all. Frankly, all I wanted to do was get off that freaking bus and into some fresh air!
So, as I have done almost every morning, I took the bus down Diez de Agosto and as soon as we reached a point from which I felt I could feasibly walk to class, I pushed my way through the crowds of people, handed a quarter to the little guy with the fanny pack whose job it is to take it, and tumbled out of the bus onto the sidewalk. Lucky for me, the last day of class was a particualarly beautiful one and more than made up for the cold, rainy miserable days that found me sitting in class shivering and uncomfortably damp for the majority of class. The sky here just seems so big and blue and clear on days like this, despite the smog that pours out of nearly every vehicle that passes by. Maybe it is the sun--it is so clear and close and strong here, the light absolutely unfiltered by anything ("All the better to burn the crap out of your skin, my dear!").
Eventually, I made it to class and, as is usual in any college-level class that I have ever experienced, there were already people there early, preparing for our final exam and talking nervously about it--what would it be like? What would the questions be? Would we really need three hours to write two essays? I am fairly superstitious about tests and do not believe in cramming or freaking out about it and verbalizing that to my fellow students right before the exam. So, I went and sat out on the patio that looked out over Quito. What a truly gorgeous day! On days like that, you can see for miles and miles--the little houses like little boxes clustered all over the mountainsides and, even more spectacularly, the mountains beyond. And on this particular days, I could see, peeking out from behind wisps of clouds and the mountains in front of it, just a bit of Cotopaxi, snow covered and magnificent.
I just sat quietly and watched as the city woke up. There is this one house directly across from the patio and, apparently, the bathroom is the room directly across. The glass is fogged so you only see the people in it as shadowy figures. The sink is nearest the window and I only deduced it was a sink because I had seen the figure of a father, with his little son sitting on the counter by the sink, while the father brushed his teeth and then brushed his son´s, a few times. On my last day of class, they were there again, the shadowy figure of the father brushing his teeth, then brushing his son´s and wiping his face.
On this particular day, I also saw, on a rooftop in the distance, a woman hanging laundry, but not just plain old laundry--this laundry was particularly brightly colored--neon pink, red, green, blue, yellow. It made me wish I had my camera (though, out of a fairly valid fear of pickpockets and just plain being robbed, which has happened to more than one of my fellow students, I did not bring it with me).
So, finally, the exam commenced! We had three hours to write two essays and we had a choice of two out of four different questions. I ended up writing about the history of the indigenous movement in the Sierra since the 1960s and then about US-Ecuadorean relations (THAT one was fun...and I kept thinking about something Hugh Grant said in that movie Love Actually: "I love that word relationship...covers all manner of sins, doesn´t it? I fear that this has become a bad relationship, based on the President taking exactly what he wants and casually ignoring all the things that really matter to Britain."). ANYHOW...
Now, like I said, I am superstitious about exams. I have my routine and the things that work for me. And one thing I find works better for me than anything is not second-guessing myself. When I do that in an exam, the product ends up worse than if I had just left it the way it was. So, essentially, I spent about an hour on each essay, getting done about an hour early. I felt self-conscious and hesitated momentarily to walk up and turn mine in, being the first done, but I decided to go with what has worked for me all through high school and college and went ahead and turned mine in. Faba was a little surprised, but I told him, "I know I have done the best I can do and sitting at my desk and rereading or rewriting will not improve what I have done." Basically, for better or worse, I knew I could do no better, so there was no use just sitting there because I did not want to be the first person done.
I gave Faba a huge hug and thanked him for everything and hugged Lenore, too. I promised to keep in touch during the four weeks I would go without seeing them during my Independent Study Project (which I am actually required to do, every Sunday and Wednesday, so they know where I am and how things are going). It was weird--I mean, we will have another week with them after our ISPs...but still, it felt strange saying goodbye and going for a whole month without seeing them! They have become like Mom and Dad for all of us since we have been down here and we see them almost every day...our beloved Fabinore! But it will be weird going so long without seeing them. However, this is what this program is about: Faba and Lenore are there to hold our hands in the beginning and in the end, they have to let us go so we can use everything we´ve learned during the semester and experience things on our own.
I stepped out into the gorgeous sunny day and, lucky for me, a Calderon bus was just going by and had been stopped at the red light. So I ran up, jumped on, and actually got a seat (score!). And it was cool--for the first time on this ride, out of all the buses I have taken in Quito, I saw a couple people I remembered seeing before--a lady with this crazy visor thing (how could I forget that!) and a guy that came on and played some songs on his guitar. The last time he got on, I had not been able to get out some money to give him before he hopped off, so this time I made sure to have my money ready and, after he was done playing, I handed it to him and murmured, "Gracias..." before he got off.
Last night was spent packing and arranging all my things for the Galapagos and running some errands. I went to the Mariscal to meet my ISP advisor Rick (who happens to be Lenore´s "compañero"). I got assigned him at the last minute because they were having difficulty finding a bilingual advisor for me. The reason I needed a bilingual advisor is because, for my ISP paper, I had chosen to do a "non-traditional" ISP and write a create writing piece as my product rather than a traditional paper. And, because the simple fact is that I know more words in English than in Spanish, I felt like I needed to write my piece in English. This is allowed, though Lenore and Faba did tell me they would grade me harder in English, which is fine. Basically, for my ISP, I am going to the Galapagos Islands for three weeks to work with the Jatun Sacha Foundation. I will be volunteering with the reforestation and eradication of invasive species projects while there. Where the creative writing piece comes in is I actually got the idea based on another volunteer I met at Jatun Sacha´s office in Quito a few weeks ago.
I went to the office to go through orientation and there was a lady for the US who was there for orientation, too, for one of Jatun Sacha´s other biological stations in Ecuador. I talked to her for awhile and she said she had just quit her job of many, many years and was reevaluating a lot of things. So, in the process of reevaluation, she decided to take a month and volunteer in Ecuador. That gave me the idea that, since I will be working with a lot of volunteers from all over the place, and the Jatun Sacha staff, it would be cool to write a fictionalized version of my experience that talks about what all these people´s histories are and their motivations for coming to the Galapagos. Also, on a larger scale, I want to talk about how effective Jatun Sacha´s efforts have been in the face of all the tourism and human incursions in the Galapagos.
Despite what I intend, as Lenore and Faba told us, nothing ever goes the way you plan it and to just keep an open mind. So, with that in mind, I really do not know where my project will go exactly. But, as Lenore and Faba also told us, ANY project can be an amazing one--there is no single magical project. It just matters what we put into it. And I am definitely ready for this.
I fly out to the Galapagos tomorrow (Sunday) morning at 9:00AM and I return on Sunday, May 11 to Quito to write my paper. I do not know what to expect as far as Internet access and phone, but I will do my best to keep this blog updated if at all possible.
Take care and until next time, ciao!
-Alex
P.S. Just remembered a couple quotes from my fellow students/the Fabster that make me laugh and by which I will think of them fondly over the next four weeks:
"I just wanna go off and have my whole thing just totally rocked and I just wanna become more like Pacho."
-Zach, during our class discussion of our goals for our ISPs
"I don´t know, I guess I just always thought it was from brushing my teeth..."
-Rachel (aka. "Africa"), explaining (completely seriously) why she has such ripped arm muscles
"And when I become the benevolent dictator of Ecuador..."
-Faba
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